Cybercriminals are overcoming language and timezone barriers to cooperate on making malware more dangerous

Cybercriminals in different hemispheres of the globe are working together to improve malicious tools, software, and techniques used to carry out cyberattacks, researchers have warned.

An investigation by Kaspersky Lab found that cybercriminals situated over 10,000km apart in Brazil and Russia are overcoming substantial time zone differences and language barriers in order to borrow techniques from each other and speed up the development of malware.

It signifies an evolution of ransomware and other forms malicious software, which not so long ago were developed in complete isolation from one another, resulting in tailored cyberattack techniques which gave away the regional origin of the attacks. For example, the Boleto malware, which stole $4 billion in two years, was specific to Brazil, in that it intercepted payments of Boletos, Brazil’s version of a money order.